Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a packaging system to enclose, protect, store and transport insulation materials, with the possibility to pack with no to low or high compression, preferably to provide ventilation when packaged and to enable indoors or outdoors storage, exhibiting easy and economic as well as ecologic application, storage and transport as well as easy opening, the manufacture of such packaging and the use of such packaging.
Description of the Related Art
Insulation materials, no matter if fibre or polymer foam based, show porous structures being sensitive to humidity or water intake (which would increase the thermal conductivity and thus decrease or even destroy the insulation effect). Additionally, as entrapped air or cell gas is the best insulator and not the surrounding fibre or foam, low densities are always targeted, however, leading to huge volume per weight unit in storage and transport. Some attempts have been made to improve the packaging of voluminous, rather soft insulation materials, such as in U.S. Pat. No. 3,587,201 A, where tubular shaped insulation is compressed by means of two box parts, similarly to DE 298 25 177 U1. WO 2006/102893 A1 discloses the wrapping of laminar (mat shape) insulation by foils or films, similar to DE 602 04 392 T2/EP 1 283 181 A1, where the packaging foil can also be used as a vapour barrier when mounting later on. In GB 1 418 882 A, a wrapped insulation is reduced in volume by applying vacuum. EP 0 275 473 A1 also claims the use of vacuum using a construction where a bundle of insulation material is wrapped with a top and bottom “plate” being mounted and vacuum being applied through the perforated bottom plate, and then the whole construction is wrapped for airtight sealing. U.S. Pat. No. 3,889,444 A, eventually, will use vacuum on a rolled insulation mat packaged into an envelope with sausage like shape. EP 0 592 314 A1 describes a process where insulation blankets in tubular form are put together in a way that a second layer of blankets is put on top of a first layer, then the whole construction is wrapped with foil and in parallel the pallet for transport is integrated. EP 0 704 384 A2 is claiming a group of six insulation material rolls, each of them wrapped in packaging to be compressed and fixed, which is put around a seventh central roll eventually forming a roughly hexagonal outer shape which is then again being wrapped. EP 2 646 340 A2 finally claims an insulation material being rolled an equipped with a rather stable wrapping comprising a handle film; however, there is no moisture or weathering protection.
All a.m. methods will lead to compression and/or deformation of the insulation goods and therefore would render their insulation properties worse in any case, as no insulation material will fully recover once compressed. Same is provided—less, but still—in e.g. US 2008/115460 A1, where mat-like insulation products are rolled, fixed by strips—which leads to inhomogeneous deformation—and then wrapped by a bag-like packaging. Additionally, as also valid for almost all a.m. inventions, the packaging is airtight and does not provide additional stability. US 2013/067861 A1 discloses a solution where several rolled mats are compressed together by a foil wrap, with an option to put a top on the packaging to protect the mat bundle from the ambience. However, neither the top nor the foil wrap are intended to represent a stable, self-standing packaging, and ventilation is almost entirely suppressed as the top is closing quite tightly. Same is valid for e.g. US 2013/067861 A1 or the already mentioned US 2008/115460 A1 (where at least vapour permeability is claimed).
All a.m. prior art is lacking in either stability (and/or stackability), weather resistance/weatherability (and/or outdoor storage possibilities), ventilation performance, variability of size, geometry and compression ratio, or in most cases even shows combinations of such disadvantages.